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Poms are winning, call an inquiry

SOMETHING utterly jaw-dropping has happened at these Games, and
it has nothing to do with a tall man with the weight a nation on
his shoulders stumbling before the first hurdle.

The Brits have overtaken Australia on the medals table. This
darkness has descended, and yet there has been no declaration of
national emergency. Clearly, Kevin Rudd hasn't been the same since
trying the Great Wall red at the opening ceremony dinner.

Once, not so long ago, Australians were a proud people who
walked tall with jutted jaws. The Poms were a source of amusement,
a fallen imperial master weeping over a dog-eared scrapbook, its
tattered images of Steve Redgrave, Seb Coe, Mary Rand and those
blokes from Chariots Of Fire fading by the day.

As much as it hurt, you'd hear them say: "Why can't we be good
at sport, like you Aussies?"

Now there's not a hutong in Beijing you can disappear down
without a smug cockney voice trailing you on the breeze, Bazza
McKenzie impersonation in full swing. "Jeez cobber, what's happened
to the Aussies, mate, ay? Bloody crook, fair dinkum!" Oh, the
shame.

And there's no point telling them it's cheating to count
Scotland, whom they can't even summon the energy to laugh at -
until Chris Hoy is flying around the track on his pushbike.

What really hurts is the knowledge that, when they were down on
their scabby knees pleading for any sporting morsel to be thrown
their way, we came to their rescue.

The airings of Land Of Hope And Glory and wall-to-wall
Union Jacks have made Laoshan Velodrome feel like the set for an
episode of The Goodies this week.

And in one of the director's chairs, guiding Great Britain's
all-conquering sprinters, is Shane Sutton.

A gold medallist for Australia at the 1978 Commonwealth Games,
Sutton cut his coaching teeth in Wales and is now firmly ensconced
in Team GB, saying "we" and "our" with an ease that belies an
accent that is still more Bankstown than Blackpool.

He cops the usual stick - "they're always taking the mickey" -
but has disturbing news as to how the new world order has been
received.

"It goes back to cricket and the rugby, the Ashes battle that
everyone likes to build up, but there's a massive amount of
camaraderie," Sutton says.

"It's just put to bed the whole Aussie-Pommy thing."

Illustrating his point, Sutton says that when the British men
won the team sprint on Friday, "There was a full team of
Australians over there cheering our boys as they went up on the
podium." And they haven't been sent home in disgrace? Madness.

Sutton insists he is just doing his job, that on this field of
battle he is a Briton, but if "we" can't win he would love the
spoils to go to Australia. "My heart and through my veins is green
and gold, that'll never go away."

Other than John Coates, with his "few swimming pools and not
much soap" assessment of life in the mother country, there's got to
be someone around here who realises the gravity of the
situation.

Someone like Steve Waugh, an athlete liaison officer with the
Australian team who must surely have watched the Old Enemy's
successes this week with the demeanour he perfected while chewing
gum at silly mid-off.

So, what are we going to do, Tugger?

"Mate, I know it's not going to help your story, but I'm just
here to see good sport," Waugh said yesterday. "They've prepared
really well, put a lot of money and effort in.

"I want to see Australia win, and I certainly don't like being
beaten by the Poms, but there's no sour grapes."